Since the first Mother’s Day back in 1908 time has developed a visible change in America’s ideology of what constitutes a family. This week’s New Yorker honors Sunday’s holiday with an illustrated cover of two moms reading a card in their kitchen while their children peer on them from the staircase in the background. The illustration is subtle but the context screams progression. In this cover artist Chris Ware demonstrates how the word family has come to mean so much more. Ware described his cover “Happy Mothers Day” on The New Yorker’s Culture Desk Blog:
“Few people today don’t know—or have in their families—at least one loving couple who are raising children, same-sex or not. And it’s really just the loving part that matters. That same-sex marriage could go from its preliminary draft of ‘diagnosable’ to the final edit of ‘so what?’ must indicate some positive evolution on the part of the larger human consciousness.”
It is refreshing to see noticeable changes in our society’s attitudes towards “non-traditional” families. While the topic of same-sex marriage is still a controversial one, more states are slowly recognizing that all people, no matter whom they love, deserve the same rights as everyone else. Hopefully little steps like the cover of The New Yorker and television shows like Modern Family will continue to ease our country’s consciousness on same-sex marriage and same-sex parenting from indifference to acceptance.
We leave you with a playlist dedicated to our moms. And to all mothers we thank you. Happy Mother’s Day!
Traci Oshiro